


Conflicting Assignments

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Banter, Gen, Hunting, Injury, Revenge, Threats, Vendettas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four BAMFs go into a rundown apartment building...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conflicting Assignments

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Leverage, Pre-Avengers.

_”Remind them what’s at stake.”_ He’d been going for nearly three weeks, but every time Eliot’s determination had started to falter, memory of Damien’s face as he’d given the kill order was more than enough to spur him forward again.

Still, three weeks of tracking one of the best covert agents in the world was starting to take its toll. “You’d better be in here,” he grumbled, looking up at the abandoned apartment building. “Or I swear I’m just going to start tenting places and fumigate. Kill you with the rest of the creepy crawlies.” The lock and chain had been broken off the battered gate ages ago – Eliot slipped inside the perimeter without any difficulty, keeping his eyes peeled for any signs of ambush or traps. _Anything out of the ordinary._

His pistol was almost invisible in the gloom against his denim clad thigh as he picked his way carefully over the debris clogging the doorway. Damien had ordered that her death “send a clear message” to her superiors at S.H.I.E.L.D., but Eliot didn’t intend to leave her standing one second longer than he had to. He’d been at Moreau’s side long enough to determine the amount of flexibility he had in carrying out his orders, and the damage required to send the kind of message Damien wanted could just as easily be done post mortem.

He exhaled softly, willing himself calm as he moved into the lobby area of the apartment building. The atrium was large, and had probably given the impression of light open space once upon a time. Now it was crowded with debris casting shadows all around him. _Too many holes for the spider to hide in._ Eliot continued his sweep, keeping all his senses alert for the slightest shift in sound – the smallest indication that Agent Romanov was closing in on him.

 _One shot._ It was all he was likely to get – it was up to Eliot to make sure it was all he needed to get the job done.  
***********************  
“Gotta give it to you, Nat – your life is rarely boring.” He was far enough away from the target that Agent Barton felt comfortable talking in low tones; the S.H.I.E.L.D. issued ear pieces were sensitive enough to pick up words little louder than a whisper.

 _”Hey, it’s not my fault Moreau took offense at me shutting down his Bulgarian operation.”_ Clint could almost hear the smile in her voice, and he couldn’t help grinning himself. _“Tell me again why you’re putting him down instead of me?”_

Barton snorted softly. “We’re not putting him down, remember? Not unless we have to. Boss-man’s got a birthday coming up.”

_“Nothing says ‘we love working for you’ like flowers, Clint.”_

He had a net arrow fit to his string, but Barton was painfully aware that he had other options in his quiver. As mercenaries went, Eliot Spencer was arguably the most dangerous there was. “Stick to the plan, Agent Romanov,” he murmured, watching Spencer pivot and bring his gun up – reacting to something Clint had neither heard nor seen.

There was a long, tense moment, then Spencer exhaled, relaxing slightly and lowering his weapon. Clint let out a quiet breath he hadn’t even been aware he’d been holding; a moment later he realized things had gone unnaturally silence over his earpiece. “Nat?”

_Nothing._

“Not funny, Nat – talk to me.” He straightened, lowering his bow. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Natasha had decided to take matters into her own hands and lure Spencer into a situation where they’d have to kill him, but she knew how he’d react if she dropped out of contact for more than a moment or two.

Clint exhaled softly, stilling his thoughts and relaxing as much as he dared. Letting go everything but what he could hear, he focused on the sounds coming through over the comm. _Two bodies…movement…_ He flinched when a woman’s voice yelled – the sound carrying far enough that it was doubled. The sounds of fighting quickly followed – Black Widow had engaged with somebody, _and it wasn’t Spencer._ “Son of a bitch,” he breathed, automatically switching his capture arrow for a simpler one designed to injure or kill.

Spencer had heard Nat’s yell too – he was already on the move when Clint aimed and drew on him. He had no way of telling if the unknown assailant was working for Moreau’s henchman, but only a fool would leave a threat like Eliot Spencer loose at his back. Hawkeye loosed his arrow without waiting to see it strike, spun on his heel and strode off in the direction of the noise. “Agent Romanov, report,” he barked, breaking into a slow jog. “Talk to me, Nat.”

There was a moment of silence in his ear, then a man’s voice said calmly, “Black Widow can’t come to the phone right now.”

Clint’s heart seemed to skip several beats, but no trace of the panic he felt could be heard in his voice when he said, “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”

The laughter that filled his head was rich and genuine. “I’ve given the lady a fighting chance,” the unknown man said. “ _My_ client wants her alive.” HIs clear implication was that Eliot Spencer operated under no such restrictions.

A flash of movement drew Clint’s attention; he half-raised his bow in an almost instinctive movement, but it was too dark with too many shadows and obstacles for him to risk a shot. “Don’t suppose there’s any chance I can offer you a better deal?” he asked, continuing to close in on his prey.  
**************  
The litany of curses running through Eliot’s head was impressive by anybody’s standards. “Dumb, stupid, fucking son of a bitch,” he spat, finishing by tying off the last strip of cloth he’d torn from his abandoned t-shirt. Every scrap of intel _he’d_ managed to pull together had Black Widow working alone. She was Fury’s secret weapon, the one agent he had who could literally go anywhere and bring him back what he was after – be it information, weapons or people.

She was predictable though, in all the ways that counted. Eliot had studied her fighting technique extensively – he knew when she was likely to engage and how. _Black belt in three styles of martial arts, prefers a modified form of kung fu…knives and Glock 26 – packs two at any given moment._ Nowhere in any of his intel did it say she used arrows like the one that had sliced through the meat of his thigh and buried itself to the shaft in a nearby concrete support column.

 _The one that had come within inches of crippling him for a very long time._ That was the hallmark of another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, one Clint Barton – code name Hawkeye. Eliot decided in a flash that whatever else happened Barton at least was going to survive the night. “Payback’s a bitch,” he grumbled, pushing to his feet and double-checking his weapons. _And messages can be sent in all kinds of ways._

And finally, there was the matter of the unknown third party – whoever had provoked the Black Widow into yelling, and whoever had been fighting with her while Eliot was busy getting shot. The closer he got to her location, the more distinct the voices became. Both were men; one he knew, one he didn’t.

 _”There’s got to be room to negotiate here.”_ That had to be Barton – the one Eliot knew only by reputation. _”What can I offer you?”_

_”I don’t jump contracts before they’re finished. If you want to hire me to get her back once I’ve turned her over…”_

The world went cold around Eliot. _Quinn._ The two of them had a couple of close encounters under their belt from Eliot’s days before he’d gone to work exclusively for Damien, but they’d never been forced to directly engage each other. _And today’s so not the day to break precedent,_ he thought, continuing to wince every time he put weight on his injured leg.

Maneuvering around the crumbling piles of debris and up the clogged stairwells was impossibly slow going, but Eliot did his best to push the pain to the back of his awareness and forced himself onward. Quinn had the same code of ethics Eliot did. He wouldn’t abandon a contract before it was complete or he was released by his client.

Similarly, Eliot wouldn’t abandon any job Damien set him, until it was done or Moreau had changed his mind. Their reputations rose and fell on their commitments to their clients and neither would risk a loss in standing at this stage of their careers.  
************************  
He’d had to knock her out. The terms of his contract said “minimal damage”, and while Quinn didn’t spend a great deal of time researching his targets, you didn’t have to be a genius to figure out this was a restriction Agent Romanov wasn’t going to be inclined to cooperate with. Catching Hawkeye’s attention was another wrinkle in the plan. As long as they were all inside the abandoned building, the crumbling conditions afforded him at least some protection from Barton’s arrows.

Unfortunately staying put didn’t allow him to fulfill his contract. It also didn’t help him deal with the still very imminent threat of Eliot Spencer. He’d heard Barton fire an arrow a few minutes earlier, but had no way of knowing whether or not it had found its mark.

Privately Quinn hoped it hadn’t. Eliot Spencer was somebody he very much wanted to test himself against. Unfortunately these days the only way that was likely to happen was if he engineered a job that put him directly at odds with Damien Moreau. _And I like breathing too much to risk that,_ he thought, positioning himself more securely behind a pile of debris with his quarry as Barton’s shadow came into view. Eliot wouldn’t play with him if he crossed Moreau – he’d just execute him as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

Taking aim, Quinn fired a shot at Barton’s head. Reacting faster than human-normal, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent shifted just enough for the bullet to skim his temple. Quinn didn’t wait to take a second shot – diving behind a nearby pile of broken wood and acoustical tile a split second before an arrow would have buried itself in his throat. Coming up on one knee, he returned fire – squeezing off two shots before having to duck the two handed swing of Barton’s compound bow.

Acting on pure instinct, his right arm shot up, catching the bow on the back swing. The impact sent waves of pain up his limb, but he held on – bringing his arm down hard and twisting until the weapon came free in his grip. He then stood up and in one fluid motion lashed out with a vicious swing of his own. Barton was forced to drop to the floor, or risk a broken skull.

Quinn flung the bow as far into the darkness as he could, drew his pistol again, and aimed down at Barton’s head. “You’re really starting to annoy me, bird-man,” he said.

A flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye drew Quinn’s attention, but he kept his aim on the man at his feet. It was already too late to get the drop on the newcomer anyway. “Hello, Eliot. Not looking too good there, are you?”

“No problems here,” Spencer said, but there was an unsteadiness about him Quinn had never seen before. “Just gonna collect my package and go.” Sighting down his own weapon at Quinn, he cross-stepped slowly towards where Black Widow lay. Quinn desperately wanted to stop him, but there was still the matter of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent at his feet. “You need to accept that you’re out of this,” he said, glancing back at Barton. “Mr. Spencer and I are going to figure out which of us gets to leave here with our reputation intact now, and you don’t want to interfere.”

“Yeah,” Spencer said, his Oklahoma accent betraying his frustration, “about that…” He was looking around the pile of debris, and his weapon was lowered. Startled, Quinn leaned back and looked at what had drawn Eliot’s attention.

Natasha Romanov had vanished.


End file.
